Illustrations

. Undated, but temporally very close to . My interlocutor with his two younger brothers and their father. The children are dressed in the EON uniform.

37

. The plant ricinus communis (castor oil plant), from which the concoction retsinolado was produced.

43

. Pencil drawing by an eleven-year-old boy (one of my interlocutors) a few weeks after the Italian invasion of Greece in 1941.

48

. The front page of Life magazine, four months after the naval attack on Helle and two months after the Italian ultimatum to Greece.

49

. A document of food stamps.

51

. A document of food stamps, reverse.

51

. A less fortunate child during the famine.

53

. A survivor of the Distomo massacre (1944) tending a grave in 1945.

55

. Makeshift shoes during the war.

58

. Mary (left) and Demetra, as university students.

60

. Photograph of detainees on Makrónisos, June 1950.

92

. Nikos Zachariadis, the secretary general of the Communist Party of Greece, in an undated postcard from one of the Communist countries.

115

. Postcard of an etching of the Democratic Army, including men and women fighters.

116

. Photograph of Kostas Papaioannou and other exiles on the island of Ai-Stratis, in the northern Aegean, taken in October 1950.

120

. Photograph of salute to the flag at the opening ceremony of the gymnastikés epideixeis (“performances of gymnastics”) at the High School of Naousa, Western Macedonia, May 1956.

121

. March of the High School of Naousa in March 1956 to celebrate the anniversary of the 1821 War of Independence.

121

. Photograph of the Union of Democratic Women in 1966.

129

. Photograph of a lapel pin (1965) with the letter delta (for Democracy), on which rests the profile of George Papandreou, prime minister of Greece.

129

. Lavrion with Makrónisos in the distance, 1945.

135

. The ruins of the infirmary on Makrónisos, with the mainland and Lavrion in the distance.

136

. An announcement of a lottery run by the Department for Protection of Minors.

152

. Advertisement for the foreign-language learning method inlingua.

159

. An engraving of a fisherman who has caught the head of Oedipus in his nets.

162

. A cartoon commenting on the role played by land speculation in the forest fires of 2007. The civil war is in the background on various levels.

176

. The door to the censorship office in the Yáros prison building.

178

Yáros (between pages 96 and 97)

. Approaching the island.

. A ferryboat with visitors approaching the Fourth Cove for disembarkment.

. Giorgos Christodoulakis, the baker of the Fourth Cove, shows the base where his tent was, fifty years ago.

. The southern slope of the Fifth Cove.

. The prisoners' cemetery on Yáros, with the Aegean and Tenos in the distance.

. The small cemetery, with twenty graves.

. The fig tree of Glastras.

. Humilation at the stone torture.

. Solar discipline—the “El-Tampa.”

. “El-Ntampa,” the solar discipline of Yioúra.

Makrónisos (between pages 102 and 103)

. Approaching Makrónisos.

. Part of the classical structures on Makrónisos, or, better said, of what was thought to be classical.

. The exterior of the sanctuary of the chapel of Aghios Georgios of the Second Battalion.

. Part of the Second Battalion structures.

. Looking up the hill toward the main road that connected all the battalions and coves.

. One of the arched entrances to the Second Battalion.

. The ruined administrative buildings of the Second Battalion.

Figure 1.

1959: High Heels. Private photograph.

Figure 2 (left).

Dated November 28, 1939, Thessaloniki. My interlocutor, his younger brother, and their father. On the back, the photograph is inscribed to the children's grandmother, who lived in Athens: “To our beloved grandmother Julia, to see us in our first caps. With kisses, your grandchildren.” Until the 1950s caps were an obligatory part of school boys' uniforms and a marker of passage from early childhood to school age. Disciplinary action was taken against children not wearing their caps, although rules were less strictly enforced in major urban centers beginning in the 1950s. Private collection.

Figure 3 (right).

Undated, but temporally very close to . My interlocutor with his two younger brothers and their father. The children are dressed in the EON uniform. The youngest of the boys is not included in because he was not old enough to wear a schoolboy's cap, but he was old enough to be drafted to the EON. Private collection.

Figure 2 (left).

Dated November 28, 1939, Thessaloniki. My interlocutor, his younger brother, and their father. On the back, the photograph is inscribed to the children's grandmother, who lived in Athens: “To our beloved grandmother Julia, to see us in our first caps. With kisses, your grandchildren.” Until the 1950s caps were an obligatory part of school boys' uniforms and a marker of passage from early childhood to school age. Disciplinary action was taken against children not wearing their caps, although rules were less strictly enforced in major urban centers beginning in the 1950s. Private collection.

Figure 4

The plant (castor oil plant), from which the concoction was produced. The plant grows wild everywhere in southern Greece, on road sides and in open fields. It is a sight as common as that of hemlock, although rarely recognized for what it is. Photograph by the author.

Figure 5

Pencil drawing by an eleven-year-old boy (one of my interlocutors) a few weeks after the Italian invasion of Greece in 1941. The original was initially published in one of the Athenian newspapers. Collection of the author.

Figure 6

The front page of magazine, four months after the naval attack on Helle and two months after the Italian ultimatum to Greece. The soldier, called belongs to the Royal Guard. The costume was later used to dress the paramilitaries and the collaborationist forces, which came to be known as Collection of the author.

Figure 7 (left).

A document of food stamps, yet another palimpsest. The photograph was taken sometime in the summer of 1940 and submitted to the authorities in Thessaloniki on August 23, 1940. The seal in the upper left corner of the photograph was applied at a later date. The photograph initially certified that the persons appearing in it are members of the family of the man in the photograph, a tax inspector, and it is signed by the director of the tax service. Each person in the photograph is named (parents, three sons, and the maid of the family, who does not appear in the photograph). During the war, the photograph (by then an official document) was used as proof of family membership for receiving food aid.

Figure 8 (right).

On the back of the photograph, in the upper right corner, it is noted that the family received stamps for bread on October 31, 1941, a year after the war had started and six months after the Germans rolled into Athens. On the front of the photograph, in the upper left corner, a stamp states that the old stamps had been exchanged for new ones. Private collection.

Figure 9

A less fortunate child during the famine. Photograph by Voula Papaioannou, Athens 1941-44. Reproduced with the permission of the Benaki Museum.

Figure 10

A survivor of the Distomo massacre (1944) tending a grave in 1945. Photograph by Voula Papaioannou, reproduced with the permission of the Benaki Museum, Athens.

Figure 11

Makeshift shoes during the war. Photograph by Voula Papaioannou, Athens 1941-44. Reproduced with the permission of the Benaki Museum.

Figure 12

Mary (left) and Demetra, as university students, in front of the Grande Bretagne a few months before graduation, in 1946. Private photograph.

Figure 13

Photograph of detainees on Makrónisos, June 1950. Note the low tents in rows and the mainland and Lavrion beyond the strait. The man in the gray shirt in the middle of the photograph is Kostas Papaioannou, whose archive is kept at the General State Archives in Kavala. Reproduced with permission.

Figure 14

Nikos Zachariadis, the secretary general of the Communist Party of Greece, in an undated postcard from one of the Communist countries. The caption reads: “Nikos Zachariadis, leader of the Democratic Army.” Collection of the author.

Figure 15

Postcard of an etching of the Democratic Army, including men and women fighters. It is signed by A. Stam and dated 1949. Author's collection.

Figure 16

Photograph of Kostas Papaioannou and other exiles on the island of Ai-Stratis, in the northern Aegean, taken in October 1950. In the center is General Stefanos Sarafis, commander in chief of ELAS during the Resistance. Sarafis was exiled in 1945 to the island of Ikaria and then transferred to Makrónisos, from which he was transferred again to Ai-Stratis in 1950. Next to him, with glasses and an open jacket, is Konstantinos Despotopoulos. They are surrounded by other political exiles, both civilians and captured military. What is remarkable about the photograph is that the exiles appear (after the tortures of Makrónisos and— possibly— Yáros) with the imprimatur of the social class to which they belonged before the war and the civil war started: suits, military attire, and peasant and lower-middle-class aesthetics mingle in this photograph. Kostas Papaioannou Archive, General State Archives of Kavala. Reproduced with permission.

Figure 17

Photograph of salute to the flag at the opening ceremony of the (“performances of gymnastics”) at the High School of Naousa, Western Macedonia, May 1956. At the front, to the left of the flag-bearing group, is the physical education teacher in charge of the performance. Private collection.

Figure 18

March of the High School of Naousa in March 1956 to celebrate the 1821 War of Independence. Leading the march is the physical education teacher. Immediately following her are high-school students dressed in traditional costumes. Behind them follows the entire high school, dressed in the formal high-school uniform. Girls precede boys. Note how demeanor in this photograph differs from : a fascistic appearance gives way to the softness of the flowing silk costumes and the smartness of the teacher's suit. Private collection.

Figure 19

Photograph of the Union of Democratic Women in 1966. The lone man standing with the women of the Union is Mimis Beis, then mayor of Zográphou, later mayor of Athens. Note the wide diversity in age. Private collection.

Figure 20

Photograph of a lapel pin (1965) with the letter delta (for Democracy), on which rests the profile of George Papandreou, prime minister of Greece. The pin was designed and used by the Union of Democratic Women in Zográphou, an association formed after the July events of 1965 (). Collection of the author.

Figure 21

Lavrion with Makrónisos in the distance, 1945. Photograph by Dimitris Harissiadis, from the exhibit catalogue , Benaki Museum. Reproduced with permission.

Figure 22

The ruins of the infirmary on Makrónisos, with the mainland and Lavrion in the distance. Photograph by the author.

Figure 23

An announcement of a lottery run by the Department for Protection of Minors, a semi-governmental organization under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice, signed by the president of the organization and the head of the Department of Guidance and Propaganda of the department. The important point is that such a department existed.

Figure 24

Advertisement for the foreign-language learning method inlingua. The caption reads: “You will talk! English, German, Spanish, and any other language you want with inlingua, the no. 1 method in the world. From Switzerland, now in Greece, too.” “Speak” and “talk” are the same word in Greek ().

Figure 25

An engraving of a fisherman who has caught the head of Oedipus in his nets. Note the liberties taken in refashioning the myth. The engraver, A. Duvivier, is rendering a marble statue by Leon Eugène Longepied entitled “A Fisherman Catching the Head of Orpheus in His Nets,” presented at the Salon des Beaux Arts in 1882, and changing the name Orpheus to Oedipus. Longepied had produced another statue depicting the same fisherman having caught Ophelia in his nets. Collection of the author.

Figure 26

A cartoon commenting on the role played by land speculation in the forest fires of 2007. The civil war is in the background on various levels.

Figure 27

The door to the censorship office in the Yáros prison building. The label on the door means “censorship.” Photograph by Apostolos Papageorgiou, used with permission.

Figure Y-1

Approaching the island. The prison building. Note the precipice. To the left of the building is a watch tower. Photograph and caption by Apostolos Papageorgiou; reproduced with permission.

Figure Y-2

A ferryboat with visitors approaching the Fourth Cove for disembarkment. The prison building was designed by the engineer Metaxas and built by the prisoners between 1948 and 1951. To the left is the Fifth Cove. An old prisoner is looking at the dry island with obvious emotion. Photograph and caption by Apostolos Papageorgiou; reproduced with permission.

Figure Y-3

Giorgos Christodoulakis, the baker of the Fourth Cove, shows the base where his tent was, fifty years ago. Photograph and caption by Apostolos Papageorgiou; reproduced with permission.

Figure Y-4

The southern slope of the Fifth Cove. The watchtower guards the southern flank of the prison. Terraces are visible on the slope, which has some soil on top of the rock. They are probably remnants from the time of Sulla's Roman exiles, when the exiles were left without any help from the outside. They had to cultivate both for themselves and for the garrisons. Photograph and caption by Apostolos Papageorgiou; reproduced with permission.

Figure Y-5

The prisoners' cemetery on Yáros, with the Aegean and Tenos in the distance. Photograph and caption by Apostolos Papageorgiou; reproduced with permission.??The cemetery was created by the prisoners themselves. After intense torture, to which the prisoners did not give in, the administration allowed them to create the cemetery so that they could bury their comrades who had been tortured to death.

Figure Y-6

The small cemetery, with twenty graves. The relatives and friends or fellow prisoners of the interred tend the graves and try to find which one belongs to whom. The salty air of the Aegean has eaten away the iron, and the crosses have been destroyed. It is difficult to identify the graves now. The pieces are all mixed up (also by visitors, who have moved them out of curiosity). Only two or three graves have been positively identified. Photograph and caption by Apostolos Papageorgiou; reproduced with permission.

Figure Y-7

The fig tree of Glastras. One of the first directors of the camp on Yáros, named Glastras (which, curiously, means “flowerpot”), introduced this particular torture. He would hang prisoners from the tree by their shoulders and subject them to beatings. He would let them hang there for days, adding the insult that they could come down only after they had ripened (they had signed ). The tree does not really exist any longer, as most of it has been destroyed by the rain runoff during the winter. This and the following drawings from Yáros are from . They were done by artists who had been interned at Yioúra. In those that follow, the captions were given by the artists.

Figure Y-8

Humiliation at the stone torture.

Figure Y-9

Solar discipline—the “El-Tampa.”

Figure Y-10

El-Ntampa,” the solar discipline of Yioúra. In the most horrific ravine of the island, the sun burns you all day long and the cold cuts through you at night. Hundreds are giving their lives still locked up in “El-Ntampa.”

Figure M-1

Approaching Makrónisos. On the slope to the right is the open-air church of Hagios Antonios. The long white building in the center of the photograph is the main bakery of the camp. The occasion of the visit was a two-day concert of the music of Mikis Theodorakis on the poetry of Yiannis Ritsos. Ritsos and Theodorakis were detained on Makrónisos for a year (1949-50), within months of each other. Theodorakis was brought to Makrónisos from exile on the island of Ikaria, Ritsos from exile on the island of Lemnos. Theodorakis was so brutally tortured on Makrónisos that he had to be taken to Military Hospital 401 in Athens. He suffered broken bones throughout his body and a dislocated jaw. After several weeks at the hospital, he was sent back to Makrónisos. After more torture (and the collapse of DSE on August 29, 1949) his father managed to have him released and took him to Crete. For ten years after Makrónisos, he would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and shivering. In the summer of 2004, at an interview given to the Greek newspaper , he mentioned that Makrónisos still sends shivers down his spine. I watched as the police helped him leave the theater after the recital, amidst red revolving police lights and a convoy of police cars. I wondered how he must have felt at that moment, his first time back on Makrónisos since 1950, being taken away from the island again by the police. The question was answered the next day when a photograph of him taken during the recital was published in the newspapers— the face of a person in deep pain. The concert was organized by the Athens Festival and took place at various sites throughout Greece, including the exile islands Samos, Lemnos, Ai-Stratis, Lesvos, Leros, and Ikaria. The Athens Festival had arranged for transport buses from the small harbor of the cove of the First Battalion, where the ferry docked, to the theater of the Second Battalion. These are the buses visible in the photograph. Photograph by the author.

Figure M-2

Part of the classical structures on Makrónisos, or, better said, of what was thought to be classical. The only connection to classicism that this bas relief has is through the classical sensibilities of fascist and Nazi aesthetics. At the top of the photograph is a watch tower. Photograph by the author.

Figure M-3

The exterior of the sanctuary of the chapel of Aghios Georgios of the Second Battalion. The church was built by the detainees with whatever materials could be found, produced, and engineered on the island. Both the exterior and the interior of the church are plastered and whitewashed. Whitewashing requires fiber to stay on the plaster, but fiber could not be found on the island. The evening of the recital a tall Makronisiotes, sitting on the bench next to me, patted his still-thick hair and said, “Do you see this hair? When we needed hair for the whitewash and none could be found, the lieutenant ordered us all shorn and used our hair for binding.” Photograph by the author.

Figure M-4

Part of the Second Battalion structures. Some of these structures were first erected for the Turkish POWs in 1912. Photograph by the author.

Figure M-5

Looking up the hill toward the main road that connected all the battalions and coves. The low vegetation is afàna (akin to sagebrush). The detainees had to clear out the area by hand and level the slope in order to build the structures or fix their tents. Without interference from humans, afàna takes over parts of the island. Photograph by the author.

Figure M-6

One of the arched entrances to the Second Battalion. Photograph by the author.

Figure M-7

The ruined administrative buildings of the Second Battalion. All the buildings on Makrónisos had wooden beams and roofs, but the wood was plundered after the camp was abandoned. The photograph is taken at the end of the recital, August 30, 2003.